A Great and Terrible Beauty

"Yes, what about Sarah" Felicity says.



Mother frowns again. "Sarah is a hungry one. She wants more than knowledge. She wants power, that one. We must keep her from the wrong path, Mary. Keep her from the Winterlands and the dark things that live there. I fear she will call them, bind one to her. And it will corrupt her mind."



She pats my hand. Her skin is dry and cracked against my knuckles. I feel I might faint. It's a struggle to get the next part out.



"What dark things?"



"Wounded spirits of such rage and hate. They want to come back to this world. They will find your weakness and exploit it."



Felicity doesn't believe a word of this part. Behind Mother's back, she makes an ogre face. But I've seen the dark move and shriek. "How could she call such a thing to her?" Despite the chill, I'm sweating and woozy.



"A sacrifice is what it wants, and then the power is hers," Mother whispers. "But she'll be forever bound to the dark."



"What sort of sacrifice?" I barely croak. Mother Elena's eyes glaze over. She's fighting something in her memory. I say it again, stronger. "What sort of sacrifice?"



"Don't get so carried away Mary ," Ann says quietly through gritted teeth.



Mother's faraway look has evaporated. She regards me with suspicion. "Who are you?"



Felicity tries to get her back. "It's your Mary, Mother Elena. Don't you remember?"



Mother whimpers, a frightened animal. "Where is Carolina with the water? Carolina, don't be naughty. Come to me."



"Mary can take you to her." Felicity jumps in.



"Stop it!" I shout.



"Mary, is it you come back to me after all this time?" Mother cups my face in her weathered hands.



"I'm Gemma," I say with difficulty. "Gemma, not Mary. I'm sorry, Mother."



Mother Elena withdraws her hands. Her scarf falls open, revealing the shine of the crescent eye around her weathered neck. She backs away. "You. You brought it on us."



The dogs bark at the rise in her voice.



"I think we had best leave," Ann warns.



"You destroyed us. Lost it all"



Felicity tosses another shilling onto the table. "Thank you, Mother. You've been most helpful. The honey cakes were delicious."



"It was you!"



I cover my ears with my hands to hide the sound. The woods echo with it, the howl of a mother animal mourning its young, a tiny creature lost to a predator in the great cycle of things. It's the sound more than anything else that sets me to running, past the Gypsy men, who are too drunk to come after us now, past the protesting Felicity and Ann I'm leaving behind. I'm deep into the woods when I stop. I cannot catch my breath and feel as if I will faint. The damned corset. With cold fingers I pull hard at the laces but can't undo them. In the end I'm on my knees sobbing with frustration. I feel his gaze before I actually see him. But there he is, watchingdoing nothing but watching.



"Leave me alone!" I shout. "Well, that's a fine way to treat us," Felicity says, huffing into view. Ann is just behind her, breathing heavily, too. "What the devil got into you back there?"



"II just got spooked," I say, trying to catch my own breath. Kartik is still there. I can feel him.



"Mother Elena may be mad, but she's harmless. Or perhaps she's not mad at all. Perhaps if you hadn't run off, her little performance would have ended and we could have had our fortunes told instead of wasting five pence for nothing."



"I'm's-sorry," I stammer. There's no one behind the tree anymore. He's gone.



"What an evening," Felicity mutters as she walks ahead, leaving me on my knees under the watchful eyes of the owls.



In the dream, I'm running, my feet sinking into the cold, muddy earth with each step. When I stop, I'm at the mouth of Kartik's tent. He's asleep, blankets thrown back, bare chest exposed like a Roman sculpture. A line of dark hair snakes over a taut stomach. It disappears into the waistband of his trousers, into a world I do not know.



His face. His cheeks-nose-lips-eyes. Under the lids, his eyes move back and forth rapidly. Thick lashes rest against the tops of his cheekbones. The nose is strong and straight.



It slopes down to a perfect point at the top of his mouth, which is open just slightly to let his breath in and. out.



I want to taste that mouth again. Wanting brings me down in a whoosh, feet planted, breathing shallow, head light. There's only the wanting. Bring my lips to his and it's like melting. Those black eyes flutter open, see me. The sculpture comes alive. Every muscle in his arms flexing as he pushes himself up, pulls me under, slides on top. The weight of him forces the air from my lungs like a bellows, but still it comes out as the lightest of sighs. And there's his mouth again on mine, a heat, a pressure, a promise of things to come, a promise I'm rising up to meet.